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Coffee grounds in flower beds


How To Use Coffee Grounds To Power Your Garden &Flowers

Did you know that when you use coffee grounds in your vegetable garden, it can help to power your plants like never before?

The same can be said for putting them in flowerbeds, hanging baskets and container plants as well. And while on the subject, they also happen to be pretty terrific in a compost pile too.

In fact, when it comes to helping out just about any living plant or organism, coffee grounds rock! Who knew the by-product of such a popular morning beverage has so much value beyond waking us up?

Listen in to our podcast on coffee grounds and egg shells below!
The Power of Using Coffee Grounds

It is amazing how quickly you can improve your soil with a few simple organic practices. Working in compost to the soil is one of the best for sure. As is adding in organic materials like shredded leaves and aged manure.

And, of course, there is always the huge benefit in growing a cover crop every fall.

But one of the easiest ways of all to help build your soil and power your plants is simply by using coffee grounds. And best of all, they are completely free.

The power of the left over remains of your morning coffee on plants is simply amazing. We use our grounds all over the landscape to add power to our plants and soil.

In fact, even if you don’t drink coffee you can get them at no cost. Many local coffee shops are more than willing to save their grounds for gardeners. All you have to do is ask!

We have had local coffee shops save them for us for years. Some even create lists in their stores to dole out the spent grounds to as many gardeners as possible. And yes, while we are on the subject, we are talking about used coffee grounds – not the fresh version. After all, that could get bit pricey for sure!

So What Makes Coffee Grounds So Great?

First and foremost, coffee grounds are an excellent, slow-release source of nitrogen. And nitrogen is a key component in making flowers flower, and vegetable plants produce.

But in addition to providing nitrogen, coffee grounds add incredible organic material and matter to the soil. All of which helps to improve the overall soil structure.

When placing in a compost pile, the grounds and filter can both go in. Bleach free filters are also biodegradable.

That results in better drainage, aeration and increased water retention for the plants growing in the soil. And not just garden plants, but flowers, herbs and more. Here is a look below at 5 great ways to use coffee grounds in your landscape.

Using Coffee Grounds In The Garden

We use coffee grounds in a whole slew of ways in our vegetable garden.

When we initially plant, we add a few tablespoons of grounds (along with worm castings, crushed egg shells and compost) to every planting hole. This little concoction helps provide nutrients directly to the plants as they grow. See Our Article: 3 Big Garden Planting Tips

But it goes far beyond using in just the planting holes. We also put coffee grounds on the soil surface around plants. This serves two great purposes.

First, it provides a slow-release of nutrients every time it rains or you water. The nutrients leach through the soil from the moisture, helping to provide power to the plants via their roots.

But the coffee grounds on the surface also help to repel slugs as well.

Slugs delicate skins are easily cut as they crawl across the sharp edges of the grounds. So placing them around the main stalk helps provide a ring of protection, and in the process, helps keep plants safe.

Although it might not be 100 percent effective as a deterrent, every little bit helps for sure!

How To Use Coffee Grounds In Hanging Baskets & Containers

Coffee grounds are an excellent slow-release fertilizer for planters and hanging baskets too. In fact, it is one of our secret weapons to keep our container plants going strong all season long.

Along with worm castings, we add a few tablespoons of coffee grounds to all of our pots and containers every few weeks. To do so, we simple sprinkle them on the surface of the soil of each container or basket.

One of the best ways to collect and keep coffee grounds is in a zip lock bag in the freezer. It keeps them easily and without worry of them molding.

When the plants are watered, the nutrients from the coffee grounds slowly leach into the soil. As they do, the plant’s roots soak them up, and the magic follows.

How To Use Coffee Grounds In Flower Beds

Much like with our vegetable plants, we use our grounds when we plant annuals in our flowerbeds.

A few tablespoons in each planting hole helps to power the plants. And it continues to help build the soil up each year as well. In addition to the trace nutrients the grounds provide, they help to add structure to the soil. And that structure is important for good drainage, and providing air channels for water and nutrients to flow in.

In addition, coffee grounds can also be added around the base of each plant as a slow release fertilizer, just like with the garden and container plants. Again, every time you water or it rains, the nutrients flow down into the soil. They also help again with protecting against slugs.

How To Use Grounds On Perennials, Shrubs and Trees

Yep, you guessed it. Coffee grounds can help as you plant perennials, shrubs and bushes too!

Using spent grounds in hanging baskets and containers is a great way to add nutrients to your plants – for free!

Adding a few tablespoons when planting perennials helps add nutrients and soil structure for long-term growth. For larger bushes or shrubs, we simply add a few coffee filters and grounds all at once around the planting hole.

The filters are bio-degradable. And as the grounds break down over time, they give back nutrients to the roots. It is the ultimate trench composting method made easy! See: How To Trench Compost

How To Use Coffee Grounds In The Compost Pile

In the spring, summer and fall, we use our coffee grounds in the landscape. But in the winter, we use them to power our compost pile!

Check Out Our Latest Garden Podcast:

They are an excellent “green source” addition to a compost pile. As a green source, coffee grounds help to heat up the pile fast. This means quicker decomposition, and a faster path to more compost.

Simply throw in your filter and grounds – and watch the magic happen!

Here is to using coffee grounds in your garden and flowerbeds this year, and to your best growing season ever! Happy Gardening -Jim and Mary.

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A Common-Sense Guide to Using Coffee Grounds in the Garden

, written by Ann Marie Hendry

Coffee shops often give coffee grounds away free to gardeners, as they’re a waste product they would normally have to pay to dispose of. For coffee-loving gardeners like me, this freely available resource sounds like a real boon. But some gardeners suggest that using coffee grounds could be ineffective or, worse, harmful to plants.

I decided to sort the facts from the hype and find out just how beneficial – or otherwise – coffee grounds are in the garden.

Using Coffee Grounds as Mulch

Mulching is incredibly beneficial but it’s notoriously difficult to come by compost, straw or other organic matter in large enough quantities at a low enough price. Using free coffee grounds seems like the perfect solution, but some gardeners have found that using coffee grounds directly on the soil has had a disastrous effect on plants. However this seems to be linked to using thick blankets of it to mulch around plants and over seeds.

With care, used coffee grounds can be added to the vegetable garden soil

The reason for this could be that coffee beans contain caffeine, which is said to suppress the growth of other plants to reduce competition for space, nutrients, water and sunlight. How much caffeine actually remains in used coffee grounds is debatable, and some plants will be more sensitive to caffeine than others. It would be sensible to avoid spreading coffee grounds around seeds or seedlings as they may inhibit germination and growth.

There is a more obvious reason why using coffee grounds alone for mulching could be detrimental. Like clay soil, coffee grounds consist of very fine particles that are prone to locking together. This turns them into a barrier that will resist water penetration and eventually result in plants dying of thirst.

The solution is to mix coffee grounds with other organic matter such as compost or leafmold before using it as a mulch. Alternatively, rake your coffee grounds into the top layer of soil so that they can’t clump together. Variable particle sizes is key to good soil structure.

Coffee grounds are often said to be acidic but this can vary a lot, from very acidic to slightly alkaline, so don’t expect them to acidify higher pH soils.

Sprinkle used coffee grounds around plants as a slow-release fertiliser

Using Coffee Grounds as Fertilizer

Many of us will have dumped the cold remains of a forgotten coffee in a plant pot at some point, and then perhaps wondered if it was the wrong thing to do! But it turns out that coffee grounds contain a good amount of the essential nutrient nitrogen as well as some potassium and phosphorus, plus other micronutrients. The quantity and proportions of these nutrients varies, but coffee grounds can be used as a slow-release fertilizer.

To use coffee grounds as a fertilizer sprinkle them thinly onto your soil, or add them to your compost heap. Despite their color, for the purposes of composting they’re a ‘green’, or nitrogen-rich organic material. Make sure to balance them with enough ‘browns’ – carbon-rich materials such as dried leaves, woody prunings or newspaper. Your compost heap’s tiny munchers and gnawers will process and mix them effectively, so using coffee grounds in this way is widely accepted to be safe and beneficial.

Many vermicomposters say that their worms love coffee grounds, so small quantities could also regularly be added to a worm bin if you have one. Paper coffee filters can go in too.

Used coffee grounds can safely be added to the compost heap

Coffee Grounds as a Natural Pesticide

An oft-repeated nugget of advice is to spread used coffee grounds around plants that are vulnerable to slug damage. There are two theories why: either the texture of the grounds is abrasive, and soft-bodied slugs prefer not to cross them, or the caffeine is harmful to slugs so they tend to avoid it.

However in an experiment slugs took just seconds to decide to cross a barrier of coffee grounds! The same researcher also sought to find out if coffee grounds would repel ants, with similar results – ants may not particularly like coffee grounds, but they won’t scarper out of your garden to get away from them.

Enjoy your daily brew and recycle used coffee grounds in the garden

Coffee Grounds and Dogs

One word of warning though: coffee grounds may not have much effect on pests, but they can be harmful to pets in large enough doses. It’s hard to say what would be a large enough dose to cause poisoning because the amount of caffeine in used coffee grounds varies. But if you have a dog that insists on sampling anything that smells halfway agreeable, it would be wise to avoid laying coffee grounds directly onto the garden. Bury them in your compost heap instead.

Coffee grounds are free organic matter, whether a by-product of your at-home daily brew or collected from coffee shops that are only too glad to give them away for nothing. If used with care and common sense, they are a worthwhile addition your compost heap and your soil.

Have you used coffee grounds in the garden? What was your experience? Share it with us by leaving a comment below!

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Content

All this is possible thanks to useful substances contained in coffee grounds. You can talk a lot about the beneficial properties of sleeping coffee and its use as a fertilizer for indoor flowers and garden plants, but this issue should be dealt with in more detail.

Benefits of coffee grounds

Ground coffee contains a lot of valuable substances. This is:

Undoubtedly, during the brewing process, some of these substances are washed out of the coffee grounds. The content of useful mineral components in sleeping coffee is approximately 2-3% (for different substances it is different). But even this amount is enough to use coffee grounds as a mineral fertilizer for home and garden flowers, vegetables, and ornamental plants. The substances contained in coffee waste are essential for their growth and development.

For example, nitrogen plays a key role in the process of photosynthesis, without which plant growth and the formation of oxygen are impossible. Phosphorus and potassium are also involved in this important process, contribute to the development of the plant, the formation of flowers and fruits.

Using dormant coffee as a fertilizer is a virtually free way to provide your plants with healthy mineral nutrition.

At the same time, the probability of harming them from an overdose of one or another component is equal to zero. The concentration of minerals in the thick is optimal for many indoor flowers, garden and garden plants.

Potted flowers are particularly susceptible to coffee ground fertilizer:

A good result is the use of dormant coffee to feed vegetables, including:

This fertilizer is suitable for garden roses, lilies, ornamental shrubs, herbs.

Drinking coffee is an excellent means of feeding fruit and berry bushes and trees. After its application, the yield of these crops increases.

It is believed that coffee residues are highly acidic and therefore unsuitable for many plant species. This is not entirely true. The grains do have a high acidity. However, excess acid is washed out during the brewing process. Coffee grounds have a neutral level of acidity and as a fertilizer it is suitable for feeding any plants.

Use of coffee grounds as fertilizer

Coffee grounds are used to fertilize plants in two ways:

  1. Liquid top dressing. This method is very simple. It consists in the fact that coffee residues (thickness and part of the liquid) are collected in one container. Then this composition is watered on the ground in flower pots or under garden plants. This method has one significant disadvantage: a wet substance is prone to infection with mold or fungi. Therefore, to fertilize potted plants, it is recommended to use dry top dressing.

    Helpful Hint: To fertilize garden beds or garden shrubs, thin out the grounds until they are ready to be watered. Water the plants from above with a watering can, then pour plain water over them. This will allow the minerals to slowly release into the soil, nourishing your plants.

  2. Dry dressing. Dry the coffee beans thoroughly before use. To do this, after draining a small amount of thick, evenly distribute it on a sheet of thick cardboard or waterproof paper. You can use plastic spacing or baking sheets from the oven. Place the prepared thick in a warm place and keep it there until completely dry. When the substance dries, do not forget to break the caked lumps. Fertilizer can be used immediately or stored in dry glass, plastic or tin cans with tight-fitting lids. Thick paper bags are also suitable for this purpose.

Use of coffee grounds in the garden

Dried dry coffee is poured under the plant, then the soil is slightly loosened. When watering, useful substances will be released and flow into the ground, gradually enriching it.

When using this fertilizer in the garden, it is dug into the ground under the plants. With the help of a shovel, the earth is dug up to a depth of about 5 cm. Dry thickening is added to the loose soil. For one tree - 1-2 glasses, depending on the size. Then the thick is sprinkled with earth and lightly tamped.

Helpful hint: don't put too much ground (so that it covers all the ground under the plant). In this case, when watering, a crust may form, which will interfere with the access of oxygen to the roots. Do not add thickening to the soil for seedlings. It will weigh down the soil and slow down germination.

Sleeping coffee for flowers

Coffee sludge is especially popular as a fertilizer for indoor plants and garden flowers. For fertilizing indoor flowers, it is recommended to prepare the following composition:

Mix all ingredients and let them rot. To do this, you can use a large tank or an old pan. The mixture should be covered with fertile soil on top, make several holes with a stick and let it mature for about a month. The resulting composition can be used as nutritional supplements, making them into flower pots.

When planting flower beds and laying flower beds, coffee residues can also be used. Forming a flower garden, add them to the ground. On a bucket of earthen mixture, you should take one glass of dry thick, mix everything thoroughly, after which you can plant flowers. After planting the plants, the soil must be watered abundantly.

Coffee pomace as compost

Minerals, primarily nitrogen, contained in coffee residues tend to be released gradually under the influence of microorganisms. This makes coffee pomace a valuable component of garden compost. To do this, it is collected and placed in a compost pit. Thick contributes to the speedy decay of the contents of the pit, improves its mineral composition.

Coffee pomace can also be added directly to planting holes for garden ornamental and fruit-bearing plants. To do this, dry cake is mixed with prepared soil. A plant is planted in the prepared soil and watered abundantly.

Helpful Hint: Try using compost containing coffee residue to grow mushrooms. According to the reviews of those who used this method, the yield increases by 2-3 times.

How else to use grounds

Coffee grounds can not only enrich plants with useful minerals, but also protect them from a wide variety of pests. Insects such as ants, slugs, snails, aphids and others do not like it. Using grounds allows you to safely and inexpensively protect your plantings. It can also be used to prevent the appearance of insect pests.

Coffee grounds may just be indispensable in your garden. This is an excellent tool for changing the structure of the soil. Adding thickening will make heavy and clayey garden soil looser and lighter. To do this, the cake is added to the soil and regularly loosened.

Drinking coffee and coffee residues can also attract beneficial insects. Including earthworms. This property is especially important for composting. Worms, processing the contents of the compost pit, loosening it, contribute to the rapid maturation of the compost.

Cats do not like coffee aroma. With the help of thick, you can wean your pet from shitting under your favorite bush. You just need to sprinkle a dry product in a thin layer and do not water for a while.

Where to get enough grounds

First of all, do not throw away after drinking the drink itself. So, in a few days you can collect a sufficient amount of thick. Good for use as a fertilizer or compost cake from a coffee machine.

In some cafes and restaurants abroad, and in our country, a special table has recently appeared with packages that say "Coffee grounds for your plants" or "Coffee scrub for you." They are a useful and pleasant present for visitors to the institution. Feel free to grab a few bags. They will only benefit your plants.

Therefore, you should not throw away such a useful product as coffee cake. Following the tips given here, you are sure to find a use for it in the garden or when breeding indoor flowers.

news, tips, harvest, fertilizer, coffee, tricks, gardening

Belarus News / Gardening and gardening


Belnovosti

12.06.2022 16:30

[email protected]

Many people who abuse coffee drinks throw away their coffee grounds and don't even think that they can be put to good use.

However, there are several useful uses for coffee residues in horticulture.

After heat treatment, useful minerals such as phosphorus, potassium and nitrogen remain in the coffee grounds. All these substances are very useful and can be an excellent fertilizer for plants. There are two main ways to use coffee grounds.

The first is to mix coffee residues with soil (preferably in a ratio of one to one), after which such soil will automatically become more useful for the plant planted on it. The second method is quite simple to perform.

Photo: © Belnovosti

You can pour the rest of the coffee grounds directly on the flower bed, they will absorb themselves and enrich the soil with useful substances.

Important note: the coffee used in these treatments should not be too thick. Otherwise, he can create a "plug" that will block the access of air to the soil, and the plant may wither.

Coffee grounds are also very effective in helping plants such as hydrangeas and roses. True, the effect is not immediately felt, and this can cause difficulties. But with frequent moderate fertilization with the coffee grounds of these plants, when the period of their flowering comes directly, it will pass many times easier and a little faster.

Coffee grounds will also help roses and hydrangeas stay healthy and more easily tolerate certain diseases.

Coffee grounds can repel harmful insects such as flies, slugs, ants and snails.

The only downside, according to some people, of coffee grounds is that they attract earthworms. However, this is not nearly as bad as it might seem at first glance. If a person has a worm farm in the garden, then this can even be considered a plus.

The remains of coffee grounds after fertilizing plants can be given to worms as food. But it is worth observing the measure - no more than one cup of coffee residue per week. Otherwise, the soil may become too acidic for the worms and they will begin to feel worse.

Another benefit of coffee grounds is their antimicrobial property. If you regularly fertilize plants with it, you can protect them from some serious diseases, such as fungus.

Cat intolerance is also considered an excellent property of coffee residues. If the plants are fertilized with coffee grounds, then the cats will stop going to the toilet right on the beds.

Another good way to use coffee grounds is to add them to the compost. A compost heap with coffee grounds in it will have the best effect on plant characteristics. If you dilute the coffee grounds with a little water, then it can also be used to water the garden or lawn.

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